Faith, Fun and Family

Our magical tea with Santa

We have just returned home from a magical family afternoon having tea with Santa at our local Wyevale Garden Centre – this has been a great toddler distraction activity and I wanted to tell you all about it! The magic started the second we arrived, where we were greeted and shown to our seats by the friendliest elf ever! We had crackers and activity/colouring sheets for the kids (although Reuben decided the excitement was too much to start with and stayed asleep in his pushchair….) and were quickly brought our food and drinks.

The adult food was very good value for money. As an event for kids, I was expecting a slightly lame turkey sandwich, but instead we got a tower of yumminess including the tastiest turkey, stuffing and cranberry sandwiches, delicious carrot cake and a homemade minced pie. The children meals were pretty standard. Sam had chicken nuggets and chips and we had ordered a picnic bag for Reuben to take home which was full of goodie including jelly, grapes, a Müller yoghurt, innocent smoothie, crisps and a sandwich.

After we had enjoyed our tea, our friendly elf returned to get the kids excited for the arrival of Santa. He interacted with all the kids (who had name labels on to make it more personal) and got them dancing and singing jingle bells to call Santa. This was good fun and made it extra special when Santa did finally arrive.

Sam enjoyed meeting Santa, and there was another friendly elf on hand to take photos with our own cameras which was really nice. Sam received not only a present of his choosing (he did initially choose a mermaid Barbie, but after a bit of persuasion changed it to a dinosaur jigsaw!) but also a bag of chocolate coins and a biscuit decorating kit to take home.

I would say that this event was really good value for money for everything you got. Our family of four would have cost around £36, but we had a lovely tea, a relaxing family afternoon and the magic of Santa included. If you are only going to treat your kids to one Santa experience this year I would definitely recommend it, and I will be considering going again next year when Reuben is big enough to enjoy it too!

More details:

Online booking page – the Wyevale Garden Centre page with further details on breakfast and tea with Santa experiences including online booking page. Prices range from £3.99 for adults to £9.99 for children. We visited Carr Gate garden centre near Wakefield, but there are venues across the UK. Disclosure: I am being treated to free entry to the tea with Santa experience in exchange for writing about it on my blog, but all opinions are my own.